Assistive technology for the impaired

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for generating accessible documents. In one embodiment, an initial document in a print format is obtained. The print format of the initial document is identified as one of a plurality of print formats. A parser corresponding to the one of the plurality of print formats is applied such that the initial document is parsed according to the print format of the initial document. An intermediate document that conforms to an intermediate format is generated based upon results obtained from applying the parser. A template for converting the intermediate document into an accessible document is obtained. The template is then such that an accessible document corresponding to the initial document is generated, wherein the accessible document includes a plurality of tags that designate an order of a plurality of regions of the accessible document.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation in part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/939,918 filed Nov. 12, 2015, which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/595,982 filed on Jan. 13, 2015, which isa continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/136,939, filed onDec. 20, 2013, now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,964,201, which is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/045,347, filed onMar. 10, 2011, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,619,272, which claims priorityfrom U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/322,774 filed on Apr. 9,2010, which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Today, 3.3 million Americans over the age of 40 are blind or havelow-vision—a number that will surpass 5 million within the next decade.In addition, over 21 million Americans have profound visual impairmentsthat require large print documents. A vast majority of these individualshave bank accounts, credit cards, and savings in various investmentvehicles that require monthly statements. However, these individualsoften are unable to access the financial statements that are typicallyprovided.

Many visually impaired individuals use assistive technologies to accessdigital information. Such assistive technologies range from screenreaders to Braille printers. However, many documents and websites arenot designed to be compatible with assistive technologies.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed guidelines fortechnology products. These Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)state that websites, software products and electronic documents shouldbe built to work with assistive technologies.

Portable Document Format (PDF) is the most commonly used document formatin electronic statements. However, this document format has presentedone of the most problematic accessibility issues. A number oforganizations have been working to address this issue by outlining theappropriate tagging requirements.

Currently, tagging of PDF documents is manually performed on aper-document basis. Unfortunately, this is a time-consuming and tediousprocess. There also fails to be a mechanism for tagging of documentsthat are stored in electronic formats other than PDF.

In view of the above, it would be beneficial if an improved process fortagging documents could be developed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The disclosed embodiments support the generation of accessibledocuments. This may be accomplished through the execution of a templateto convert one or more documents into accessible documents. This may beaccomplished on a per-document basis, or as a batch process such that aplurality of documents are converted simultaneously.

In accordance with one aspect, an accessible document that is generatedmay include a plurality of tags, where the plurality of tags conform toa set of accessibility standards for generating documents compatiblewith an accessibility product for visually impaired individuals. Forinstance, the plurality of tags may designate an order of a plurality ofregions of the accessible document, where the order indicates anappropriate read order for visually impaired individuals. The designatedorder of the plurality of regions of the accessible document may bedifferent from an order of the plurality of regions of the initialdocument from which the accessible document was generated.

In accordance with another aspect, documents stored in various formatsmay be converted to accessible documents. More particularly, when aninitial document is obtained, the format of the initial document may beidentified as one of a plurality of formats. For example, the format ofthe initial document may be one of a plurality of print formats. Aplurality of parsers may be available for parsing documents of any ofthe plurality of formats. Therefore, a parser corresponding to theidentified one of the plurality of formats may be applied such that theinitial document is parsed according to the format of the initialdocument. More particularly, the initial document may be parsed toidentify a plurality of regions of the initial document.

In accordance with yet another aspect, an intermediate document thatconforms to an intermediate format may be generated based upon resultsobtained from applying the parser. More particularly, a data structureor document such as a PDF document identifying each of the plurality ofregions of the initial document may be generated. The intermediatedocument may also include additional information pertaining to theplurality of regions, such as the order of the plurality of regions inthe initial document and information (e.g., text) in each of theplurality of fields/regions of the initial document.

In accordance with yet another aspect, the intermediate document may beconverted into an accessible document through the use of a template. Inthe following description, the term “template” will be used to refer toa reusable component that includes computer-readable instructions forconverting an intermediate document into an accessible document. Inother words, the template may include the computer-readable instructionsthat are specific to tagging a document of a particular document type(e.g., bill type). The computer-readable instructions for converting aninitial document into an intermediate document may not be specific to aparticular document type (e.g., bill type). Rather, thecomputer-readable instructions for converting an initial document intoan intermediate document may include instructions for parsing an initialdocument in a particular format (e.g., print format) to generate anintermediate document in an intermediate format (e.g., PDF). Since theinstructions for converting an initial document into an intermediatedocument are not specific to the document type, these instructions neednot be re-saved for each document type and corresponding template.However, in other embodiments, the computer-readable instructions forconverting an initial document into an intermediate document may besaved in association with each template.

In accordance with another aspect, a template may be generated throughthe use of a user interface. More particularly, a user may specify oneor more tags to be associated with one or more of a plurality of regionsof a first document through the use of a user interface. Through thisprocess, computer-readable instructions for tagging the document may begenerated and saved as a template that may executed for tagging otherdocuments (e.g., intermediate documents) of the same document type.

In accordance with certain aspects, automatic detection of the regionsof a document may be used in association with the user interface todetect and tag the document or areas thereof. Thus, the individual canselect automatic detection of an area of the document or the entiredocument using the user interface. Alternatively or additionally, once aregion is defined or detected (e.g., manually by the user orautomatically), the individual can select to automatically detect fieldswithin the region, etc. Thus, the auto detection may be applied to theentire document or a region within the document specified by theindividual (e.g., using the user interface).

In accordance with one aspect, a template may be generated during theprocess of tagging a first document and reused to tag a second document.More particularly, a first document in a first format may be obtained.The first document may be parsed to generate an intermediate documentthat conforms to an intermediate format. A template includingcomputer-readable instructions for converting the intermediate documentinto an accessible document may be generated. The template may then beexecuted to convert the first document, as well as a second, differentdocument, into an accessible document. The second document need not bein the same format as the first document. For instance, the firstdocument and the second document may be saved as two different printformats. While the first document and the second document need not be inthe same format, they should be of the same type. For instance, thefirst document and the second document may both be a utility bill.

In accordance with yet another aspect, once a template has been saved,the pre-existing template may be “re-used” to tag other documents of thesame document type. In one embodiment, an initial document may beobtained and parsed to generate an intermediate document that conformsto an intermediate format. For example, the initial document may beparsed to identify a plurality of regions of the initial document. Theintermediate document may therefore identify the plurality of regions ofthe initial document, as well as other information pertaining to theplurality of regions of the initial document. An existing templateincluding computer-readable instructions for converting an intermediatedocument of the document type into an accessible document may beobtained and executed such that an accessible document corresponding tothe initial document is generated from the intermediate document.

In accordance with yet another aspect, a plurality of documents of thesame document type may be converted to accessible documents using thetemplate that corresponds to that document type. For instance, theplurality of documents may include bank statements to be issued from aparticular bank, where each of the bank statements is a statement for adifferent individual. More particularly, a set of initial documents maybe obtained, where each of the set of initial documents is a firstdocument type (e.g., bank statement). Each of the set of initialdocuments may be parsed to identify a plurality of regions of thecorresponding one of the set of initial documents. A template includingcomputer-readable instructions for generating an accessible documentincluding the plurality of regions for the first document type may beobtained and executed such that an accessible document is generated foreach of the set of initial documents.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example system in whichvarious embodiments may be implemented.

FIG. 2A is a process flow diagram illustrating a method of generating atemplate for converting an initial document to an accessible document.

FIG. 2B is a process flow diagram illustrating a method of defined oridentifying regions of a document or tags associated with regions inaccordance with various embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a process flow diagram illustrating an example method ofexecuting a template in accordance with various embodiments of theinvention.

FIG. 4 is a process flow diagram illustrating a method of processing abatch of documents in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example system in which variousembodiments may be implemented.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example computer system via which variousembodiments may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to specific embodiments of theinvention. Examples of these embodiments are illustrated in theaccompanying drawings. While the invention will be described inconjunction with these specific embodiments, it will be understood thatit is not intended to limit the invention to these embodiments. On thecontrary, it is intended to cover alternatives, modifications, andequivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of theinvention as defined by the appended claims. In the followingdescription, numerous specific details are set forth in order to providea thorough understanding of the present invention. The present inventionmay be practiced without some or all of these specific details. In otherinstances, well known process operations have not been described indetail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of Webaccessibility guidelines published by the W3C's Web AccessibilityInitiative. They consist of a set of guidelines on making contentaccessible, primarily for disabled users, but also for devices such ashighly limited devices, such as mobile phones.

The disclosed embodiments enable an accessible document to be generatedfrom an initial document in accordance with web accessibility guidelinessuch as WCAG 1.0, published on May 5, 1999, or WCAG 2.0, published onDec. 11, 2008, which are incorporated herein by reference for allpurposes. When printed or viewed via a display, the accessible documentmay appear to be identical to the initial document. However, theaccessible document may be compatible with various accessibilityproducts enabling visually impaired individuals to “read” the accessibledocument, as will be described in further detail below. Variousaccessibility products include speech synthesizers (i.e., readers)capable of reading a document, technology that renders hard-copy outputinto Braille, and Braille devices. In addition, the accessible documentmay make the content of the initial document accessible to variousdevices such as mobile phones.

In the following description, the term document may be used to describean electronic document (e.g., file) or data structure representing aphysical document that may be printed or displayed via a suitable medium(e.g., printer or display). The document may include text and/or images(e.g., graphics, photographs, logos, etc.). In addition, the documentmay include formatting information such as font characteristics (e.g.,font size, bold, italics, underline, color, etc.).

The disclosed embodiments may be implemented in software and/orhardware. For example, the software may be implemented in anobject-oriented language such as C++ or Java.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example system in whichvarious embodiments may be implemented. As shown at 102, an initialdocument may be received. For example, the initial document may be abill, book, magazine, newspaper, or article. In addition, the format ofthe initial document may be one of a variety of formats capable of beingparsed and converted to an accessible document via a system such as thatdescribed herein. For example, the initial document may include a printstream in one of various print formats such as Advanced FunctionPrinting (AFP), line data, metacode, Printer Command Language (PCL),Portable Document Format (PDF), or TIFF.

Upon receiving the initial document 102, a parser 104 may parse theinitial document in order to generate an intermediate document in anintermediate format 106. For example, the intermediate format may bePDF. Moreover, information provided in the intermediate document may bestored in a data structure such as an object (i.e., instantiation of aclass) generated in an object-oriented language.

In one embodiment, the parser 104 parses the initial document 102 inorder to identify or define a plurality of regions (i.e., sections)within the initial document 102. In this manner, the logical structureof the document may be identified. For example, the regions that areidentified may include specific fields, rows, or columns within theinitial document 102. Examples of regions that may be identified for abill include a title, due date of a bill, an amount due, a name of theindividual to which the bill is addressed, an address of the individualto which the bill is addressed, and/or one or more line items/rowsincluding text describing an item billed and a corresponding amountbilled for the item. Each of the regions may be defined by a rectangulararea or a border surrounding the region. Thus, content from each of theidentified regions may be extracted. This content may then be used togenerate the intermediate document in the intermediate format 106. Moreparticularly, the content may be stored in an intermediate datastructure such as an object, which may then be used to generate theintermediate document.

A tag generator 108 may generate an accessible document 110 from theinitial document 102 by “tagging” the corresponding intermediatedocument through the execution of a template. More particularly, the taggenerator 108 may tag the intermediate document by inserting one or moretags at various points within the intermediate document. The tags in anaccessible document may designate an order of the various fields orregions within the accessible document. This order will be interpretedby an accessibility product as a “reading order,” where the order isappropriate for the visually impaired. In this manner, the disclosedembodiments may enable a visually impaired person to better understandthe information presented in a variety of documents.

In order to generate a template, an individual may specify tagsassociated with various identified regions of an initial document orintermediate document via a graphical user interface. More particularly,when the individual chooses to tag an initial document, the initialdocument may be automatically parsed to generate a correspondingintermediate document. A user interface may be provided to enable theindividual to select region(s) within the initial/intermediate documentand submit tags to be inserted in association with the selectedregion(s), resulting in the generation of an accessible document.

Thus, in order to generate a template in accordance with certainembodiments, an individual can view a document in the graphicalindividual interface. This view may, for example, be a visualpresentation of the print format version of the document. Using thevisual presentation of the document an individual can manually configurethe structure of the pages within a document by defining the regions ofa document, hierarchy of the regions, submitting tags to be insertedwith respect to the regions, etc. For example, using the interface theindividual may draw a box around an area of the visual presentation ofthe document and define the area of the visual presentation encompassedby the box as a region; may draw a box around an area of the visualpresentation of the document and define the area of the visualpresentation encompassed by the box as a field within region; may draw abox around an area of the visual presentation of the document and definethe area of the visual presentation encompassed by the box as a table,then manually define the columns of the table, etc. This manualselection of regions of a document and submission of tags can be timeconsuming and tedious.

Accordingly, in accordance with certain aspects, automatic detection ofthe regions of a document may be used in association with the visualpresentation of the document to detect and tag the document or areasthereof, for use in, for example, generating a template based on thatdocument. Thus, when the visual presentation of the document ispresented to an individual, the individual can select automaticdetection of an area of the document or the entire document.Alternatively or additionally, once a region is defined or detected(e.g., manually by the user or automatically), the individual can selectto automatically detect fields within the region, etc. Thus, the autodetection may be applied to the entire document or a region within thedocument specified by the individual (e.g., using the graphicalinterface). In certain embodiments, the individual may provide “hints”about the area being detected such as the number of regions, fields orcolumns to that may exist (e.g., the default may be unknown) or thebreakup of the area (e.g., a column-based breakup, a row-based breakup,or mix columns and rows, with the default again being unknown).

A set of computer-readable instructions for tagging a document of thesame type may be automatically generated as a result of this process.For example, the computer-readable instructions may be generated in amarkup language such as Extensible Markup Language (XML). Once all ofthe tags for the document have been specified, the set ofcomputer-readable instructions may be saved as a template 112. Thetemplate 112 may be named and/or associated with a particular type ofdocument. Thus, a first template may be saved in association with afirst type of document, while a second template may be saved inassociation with a second type of document. Various types of documentsmay include documents generated by a specific company, newspapers,magazines, articles, books, or bills. More particularly, an electricbill generated by an electric company will generally have a differentformat from a credit card bill generated by a credit card company. Infact, each credit card company may use a different format whengenerating their credit card statements. Therefore, a different templatemay be generated in order to convert each of these different types ofdocuments to an accessible document 110. A method of generating atemplate for converting an initial document to an accessible documentwill be described in further detail below with reference to FIG. 2.

A template 112 is a reusable component that may includecomputer-readable instructions for tagging an intermediate document. Insome embodiments, the template 112 may also include instructions forparsing an initial document and generating an intermediate documentcorresponding to the initial document, as described herein.

Assuming that a template has previously been generated and saved asshown at 112, the template 112 may be executed in order to tag anotherdocument of the same type. More particularly, the template maycorrespond to a particular type of the initial document. The type ofdocument may be any form of printable document that contains encodedtext and/or images and has a consistent repeating logical structure orlayout across many instances of that document type.

When the template is executed in association with the current initialdocument, the executing template may automatically tag the correspondingintermediate document. Through the execution of the template to tag theintermediate document, the initial document 102 may be “converted” to anaccessible document 110. The accessible document 110 may then be outputor saved for later retrieval. In one embodiment, the accessible document110 is a PDF document. A method of converting an initial document to anaccessible document using an existing template will be described infurther detail below with reference to FIG. 3.

FIG. 2A is a process flow diagram illustrating a method of generating atemplate in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. Aninitial document in an initial format may be obtained at 202. In oneembodiment, the initial document conforms to a print format.

It would be desirable to support the generation of accessible documentsfrom multiple formats. This may be accomplished by parsing an initialdocument to generate an intermediate document that conforms to anintermediate format at 204. More particularly, a format of the initialdocument may be identified as one of a plurality of formats for whichaccessible documents can be generated. One of a plurality of parserscorresponding to the one of the plurality of formats may then parse theinitial document according to the format of the initial document. Forexample, where the initial document conforms to one of a plurality ofprint formats, a format of the initial document may be identified as oneof the plurality of print formats. Parsing of the initial document maythen be performed according to the identified print format.

During the parsing process, a plurality of regions of the initialdocument may be defined or identified. For example, a row of a statementor bill may be identified as a line item of the bill. This may beaccomplished despite the variations in size or height of the rows. Theseregions may be defined by the names of one or more field(s) within theregions and/or physical dimensions of regions within the initialdocument. The region names and/or content within the regions may bestored in an intermediate data structure. Based upon the identifiedregions, an intermediate document including the plurality of regions maybe generated.

Computer-readable instructions for converting the intermediate documentrepresenting the plurality of regions into an accessible document may begenerated at 206 via a user interface, as set forth above. A templateincluding the computer-readable instructions may be stored as a templatefor converting the intermediate document into an accessible document.

The template may then be executed at 208 such that an accessibledocument corresponding to another, second initial document of the sametype is generated. More particularly, the second initial document may beparsed to identify regions within the second initial document, enablingan intermediate document including the identified regions to begenerated, as set forth above. The intermediate document correspondingto the second initial document may be automatically tagged as specifiedin the template in order to generate the accessible document. Forexample, the accessible document may be a PDF document that conforms tothe PDF format.

The accessible document may include a plurality of tags that conform toa set of accessibility standards for generating documents compatiblewith an accessibility product for visually impaired individuals. Theplurality of tags may designate or otherwise indicate an order of aplurality of regions of the accessible document, enabling anaccessibility product or other device to relay the information in thetagged regions of the accessible document in the designated order. Thedesigned order of the plurality of regions of the accessible documentmay be different from an order of the plurality of regions in theinitial document. For example, while the amount due region of an initialbill may be present at the end of the bill, the amount due region may betagged as the first piece of information in an accessible documentgenerated from the initial bill. In this manner, information in adocument may be reordered in a manner that is more suited to visuallyimpaired individuals.

Tagging may be performed in accordance with accessibility standards, andtherefore may be used in a variety of scenarios. Moreover, readerstypically do not understand how to read and interpret non-textualinformation such as tables, charts, logos, hypertext links, and images.Thus, in order to relay this non-textual information to a visuallyimpaired individual, an accessible document may be tagged with alternatetext to replace this non-textual information. An accessibility productmay interpret this additional text as alternate text to be “read” orotherwise communicated in place of the information in the correspondingtagged region of the document. As one example, a tag may be used toidentify (or replace) an image present in one of the plurality ofregions of the initial or intermediate document. Through the use oftagging, a pre-defined set of text associated with the image may beadded to the intermediate document during generation of an accessibledocument. As another example, a tag indicating a company's name may beadded in association with a logo. As yet another example, text such as“Dec. 1, 2010” may be added in association with a date in a format suchas “12/01/10.” Furthermore, tagging may notify readers that informationin a table is presented in rows and columns so that it can be properlydelivered and understood by a visually impaired individual. Forinstance, tagging may identify rows and columns of a table. Text mayalso be added in association with hypertext links or graphics.

Tagging may also be used to specify a particular language in which theaccessible document is to be presented to a user via an accessibilityproduct. For example, the language may be tied to a particular user suchas the user of the accessibility product. An accessibility product wouldtherefore be able to communicate information in the accessible documentin the specified language.

FIG. 2B is a process flow diagram illustrating a method of defined oridentifying regions of a document or tags associated with regions, inaccordance with various embodiments of the invention. As discussed, incertain embodiments automatic detection of the regions of a document maybe used in association with the visual presentation of the document todetect and tag the document or areas thereof, for use in, for example,generating a template based on that document. Thus, when the visualpresentation of the document is presented to an individual theindividual can select automatic detection of an area of the document orthe entire document. Alternatively or additionally, once a region isdefined or detected (e.g., manually by the user or automatically), theindividual can select to automatically detect fields within the region,etc. Thus, the auto detection may be applied to the entire document or aregion within the document specified by the individual (e.g., using thegraphical interface). In certain embodiments, the individual may provide“hints” about the area being detected such as the number of regions,fields or columns to that may exist (e.g., the default may be unknown)or the breakup of the area (e.g., a column-based breakup, a row-basedbreakup, or mix columns and rows, with the default again being unknown).

The document or region may initially be scanned at step 210. Thisscanning may scan the intermediate format of the document. Thisintermediate format may, for example, by the Xenos Intermediate format(XIF) and the auto detection feature may scan the XIF Elements of theintermediate format of the document to determine which elements arecontained fully within or mostly within the boundaries of the documentor region being scanned. In particular, the horizontal lines, verticallines, vectors, images and Text (fragments) in all four print directionsare collected, segregated and sorted by location during the scan.

According to one aspect this intermediate format may describe all“marks” on the page. These marks may include, for example, all imagessuch as a 1×1 inch logo, all lines which may make up the boundaries of atable or underscore a header, all vectors which may represent a graphic(e.g., a histogram, pie chart, etc.), shaded areas to highlight an area,and all text fragments on the page.

According to aspects, a text fragment is one or more characters in aknown encoding (e.g., Unicode), that is drawn or represented by a font.If text presented visually on a page is part of an image, it may not betreated as a text fragment. In other words, optical characterrecognition may not be performed on this text. The fragments aretypically whole words without spaces (e.g., “this has seven fragments,as an example”). However, the text fragments may be partial words oreven a single character. The text fragments may have an implied readingorder, top/down, left/right, although they can be represented in theprint stream in any order. Vectors are interpreted to determine theexact boundaries of the vector graphic associated with the vector, andmay be converted into horizontal/vertical lines.

The text fragments can be combined at step 220. In one aspect, the textfragments in the most used print direction are scanned and fragmentsthat are within a threshold the width (e.g. 50%) of a space are combinedtogether. Then, text fragments that are close enough to be consideredpart of the same sentence are also combined. These combined textfragments are then treated as text lines. In one aspect, text fragmentsin the other three print directions (e.g., other than the most usedprint direction) are treated as images for the purpose of autodetection. This treatment may occur because text fragments aligned alongthe other three direction may be used as separating text. For example, along sentence running from the “bottom” of a document to the “top” of adocument may actually separate two sides of a section.

The Xprojection and Yprojections for the text lines can be determined atstep 230. These Xprojections and Yprojections are the distance (e.g.,number of pixels) between each text line and each other text line. TheseXprojections and Yprojections can be determined by comparing one textline to the other text line to detect the gap (distance) between thetext lines in both the horizontal (Xprojection) and vertical(Yprojection) directions.

The regions in the area (e.g., specified by the individual or the entiredocument) on which auto detection is being performed may be determinedbased on the Xprojections and Yprojections at step 240. As discussed,the individual may have provided hints about the area being detected,thus these hints may be evaluated along with the Xprojections andYprojections for the text lines to, for example, compare theseprojections to threshold distances to determine the regions of the area.The examination may be an iterative process that evaluates theprojections and any hints given by the user to determine a most likelyresult for the regions in the area.

The determined regions are returned to the user interface and presentedto the user in conjunction with the graphical presentation of thedocument at step 250. For example, the regions may be added to the pageand presented graphically through a box around the determined region,fields may be added to the region, columns presented in conjunction witha table, etc. The individual can then accept these auto-detected regionsor may edit or alter these regions as discussed above.

FIG. 3 is a process flow diagram illustrating a method of executing atemplate in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. Aninitial document may be obtained at 302. The initial document may beparsed at 304 to generate an intermediate document that conforms to anintermediate format, as set forth above. More particularly, the initialdocument may be parsed to identify a plurality of regions of the initialdocument in order to generate the intermediate document. A template forgenerating an accessible document from the intermediate document may beobtained at 306. The template may then be executed at 308 such that anaccessible document is generated from the intermediate document, whereinthe accessible document includes a plurality of tags that designate anorder of a plurality of regions of the accessible document.

Conversion of a document to an accessible document may be performed onan as-needed basis on demand in response to a request from anindividual. For instance, the individual may submit a request for anaccessible document corresponding to a particular initial document (orrequest generation of the accessible document). The request may bereceived off-line or on-line. For instance, the individual may submit arequest via a user interface coupled to a website suitable forgenerating and/or providing access to accessible documents. In oneembodiment, the individual may log in to his or her account via thewebsite in order to generate, view or otherwise obtain an accessibledocument from his or her account. Thus, the request may indicate anidentity of the individual associated with the initial document. Uponreceiving the request, the accessible document may be generated andprovided to the individual in real-time (e.g., by providing anelectronic version such as a PDF of the accessible document for viewingor downloading) or at a later time (e.g., via postal mail). Thegeneration and/or providing of the accessible document may be performedautomatically, or upon initiation by a user (e.g., the individual).

Alternatively, conversion of documents to accessible documents may beperformed as a batch process to generate a plurality of accessibledocuments. The accessible documents may be stored for later retrieval.More particularly, each of the accessible documents may be provided inresponse to a request from an individual, as set forth above.

FIG. 4 is a process flow diagram illustrating a method of processing abatch of documents in accordance with various embodiments. A set ofinitial documents may be obtained at 402, each of the set of initialdocuments being a first document type. For example, a composition enginemay generate a single file including a plurality of documents. The filemay then be processed accordingly. More particularly, each of the set ofinitial documents may be parsed to identify a plurality of regions ofthe corresponding one of the set of initial documents at 404. A templatefor generating an accessible document including the plurality of regionsfor the first document type may be obtained at 406. The template may beexecuted such that an accessible document is generated for each of theset of initial documents, wherein each accessible document includes aplurality of tags that designate an order of the plurality of regions ofthe accessible document.

The accessible document that is generated for each of the set of initialdocuments may be stored such that a plurality of accessible documentsare stored. One of the pluralities of accessible documents may then beprovided in response to a request indicating an identity of anindividual associated with the one of the plurality of accessibledocuments.

The disclosed embodiments may be used advantageously by companies toconvert high volume documents such as bills in an efficient manner.Moreover, data formatted for a printer may be captured and transformedinto an accessible document. Therefore, organizations may capture datafrom high-volume print streams and transform it into accessibledocuments. Through the automation of the generation of accessibledocuments, organizations can gain a competitive advantage by supportingan underserved consumer segment. Moreover, the ability to generateaccessible documents eliminates the need for these organizations tocontract with outsourcers to generate accessible documents on aper-document basis.

Embodiments of the present invention may be employed to generateaccessible documents in any of a wide variety of computing contexts. Forexample, as illustrated in FIG. 5, implementations are contemplated inwhich the relevant population of users interact with a diverse networkenvironment via any type of computer (e.g., desktop, laptop, tablet,etc.) 1002, media computing platforms 1003 (e.g., cable and satelliteset top boxes and digital video recorders), handheld computing devices(e.g., PDAs) 1004, cell phones 1006, or any other type of computing orcommunication platform.

An accessible document may be generated or accessed according to theinvention in some centralized manner. This is represented in FIG. 5 byserver 1008 and data store 1010 which, as will be understood, maycorrespond to multiple distributed devices and data stores. Theinvention may also be practiced in a wide variety of networkenvironments (represented by network 1012) including, for example,TCP/IP-based networks, telecommunications networks, wireless networks,etc. In addition, the computer program instructions with whichembodiments of the invention are implemented may be stored in any typeof computer-readable media, and may be executed according to a varietyof computing models including a client/server model, a peer-to-peermodel, on a stand-alone computing device, or according to a distributedcomputing model in which various of the functionalities described hereinmay be effected or employed at different locations.

The disclosed techniques of the present invention may be implemented inany suitable combination of software and/or hardware system, such as aweb-based server or desktop computer system. The apparatus of thisinvention may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or itmay be a general-purpose computer selectively activated or reconfiguredby a computer program and/or data structure stored in the computer. Theprocesses presented herein are not inherently related to any particularcomputer or other apparatus. In particular, various general-purposemachines may be used with programs written in accordance with theteachings herein, or it may be more convenient to construct a morespecialized apparatus to perform the required method steps.

Regardless of the system's configuration, it may employ one or morememories or memory modules configured to store data, programinstructions for the general-purpose processing operations and/or theinventive techniques described herein. The program instructions maycontrol the operation of an operating system and/or one or moreapplications, for example. The memory or memories may also be configuredto store documents being converted to accessible documents, accessibledocuments, computer-readable instructions for enabling a user to tagdocuments via a graphical user interface, templates that have beengenerated as a result of tagging an initial document, computer-readableinstructions for generating a graphical user interface enabling a userto tag an initial document or execute a previously generated templatefor tagging documents, etc.

Because such information and program instructions may be employed toimplement the systems/methods described herein, the present inventionrelates to machine readable media that include program instructions,state information, etc. for performing various operations describedherein. Examples of machine-readable media include, but are not limitedto, magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape;optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical media such asfloptical disks; and hardware devices that are specially configured tostore and perform program instructions, such as read-only memory devices(ROM) and random access memory (RAM). Examples of program instructionsinclude both machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and filescontaining higher level code that may be executed by the computer usingan interpreter.

FIG. 6 illustrates a typical computer system that, when appropriatelyconfigured or designed, can serve as a system of this invention. Thecomputer system 1100 includes any number of processors 1102 (alsoreferred to as central processing units, or CPUs) that are coupled tostorage devices including primary storage 1106 (typically a randomaccess memory, or RAM), primary storage 1104 (typically a read onlymemory, or ROM). CPU 1102 may be of various types includingmicrocontrollers and microprocessors such as programmable devices (e.g.,CPLDs and FPGAs) and unprogrammable devices such as gate array ASICs orgeneral purpose microprocessors. As is well known in the art, primarystorage 1104 acts to transfer data and instructions uni-directionally tothe CPU and primary storage 1106 is used typically to transfer data andinstructions in a bi-directional manner. Both of these primary storagedevices may include any suitable computer-readable media such as thosedescribed above. A mass storage device 1108 is also coupledbi-directionally to CPU 1102 and provides additional data storagecapacity and may include any of the computer-readable media describedabove. Mass storage device 1108 may be used to store programs, data andthe like and is typically a secondary storage medium such as a harddisk. It will be appreciated that the information retained within themass storage device 1108, may, in appropriate cases, be incorporated instandard fashion as part of primary storage 1106 as virtual memory. Aspecific mass storage device such as a CD-ROM 1114 may also pass datauni-directionally to the CPU.

CPU 1102 may also be coupled to one or more interfaces 1110 that connectto one or more input/output devices such as such as video monitors,track balls, mice, keyboards, microphones, touch-sensitive displays,transducer card readers, magnetic or paper tape readers, tablets,styluses, voice or handwriting recognizers, speakers, accessibilitydevices such as speech synthesizers (i.e., readers) or Braille devices,or other well-known input devices such as, of course, other computers.Finally, CPU 1102 optionally may be coupled to an external device suchas a database or a computer or telecommunications network using anexternal connection as shown generally at 1112. With such a connection,it is contemplated that the CPU might receive information such as anaccessible document from the network, or might output information suchas a request for an accessible document to the network in the course ofperforming the method steps described herein.

Although the foregoing invention has been described in some detail forpurposes of clarity of understanding, it will be apparent that certainchanges and modifications may be practiced within the scope of theappended claims. Therefore, the present embodiments are to be consideredas illustrative and not restrictive and the invention is not to belimited to the details given herein, but may be modified within thescope and equivalents of the appended claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: receiving a firstelectronic document including a plurality of regions; identifying, by aprocessor, the plurality of regions in the first electronic document;and processing the first electronic document using a template togenerate a second electronic document by tagging at least a subset ofthe plurality of regions of the first electronic document withinformation indicating a logical order of the plurality of the regionsbased on the template, the tagging information conforming to at leastone accessibility standard and allowing an accessibility product topresent the subset of the plurality of regions through a computingdevice according to the logical order without user specification of thelogical order of presentation.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thetemplate includes a set of tagging rules corresponding to a type of thefirst document.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the template definesthe plurality of regions in association with the set of tagging rules.4. The method of claim 3, further comprising automatically detecting theplurality of regions.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein theautomatically detected plurality of regions are saved in the template.6. The method of claim 5, wherein the plurality of regions areautomatically detected by determining a plurality of text fragmentsassociated with at least one of the plurality of regions and determininga gap between the plurality of text fragments.
 7. The method of claim 6,wherein the plurality of text fragments have a reading order.
 8. Anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructionsthereon, the instructions when executed by a processor cause theprocessor to: receive a first electronic document including a pluralityof regions; identify, by a processor, the plurality of regions in thefirst electronic document; and process the first electronic documentusing a template to generate a second electronic document by tagging atleast a subset of the plurality of regions of the first electronicdocument with information indicating a logical order of the plurality ofthe regions based on the template, the tagging information conforming toat least one accessibility standard and allowing an accessibility toproduct to present the subset of the plurality of regions through acomputing device according to the logical order without userspecification of the logical order of presentation.
 9. Thecomputer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the templateincludes a set of tagging rules corresponding to a type of the firstdocument.
 10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, whereinthe template defines the plurality of regions in association with theset of tagging rules.
 11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim10, wherein the instructions cause the processor to automatically detectthe plurality of regions.
 12. The computer-readable storage medium ofclaim 11, wherein the automatically detected plurality of regions aresaved in the template.
 13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim12, wherein the plurality of regions are automatically detected bydetermining a plurality of text fragments associated with at least oneof the plurality of regions and determining a gap between the pluralityof text fragments.
 14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13,wherein the plurality of text fragments have a reading order.
 15. Asystem for converting documents, comprising: a processor; and a computerreadable medium, comprising instructions executable on the processorfor: receiving a first electronic document including a plurality ofregions; identifying, by a processor, the plurality of regions in thefirst electronic document; and processing the first electronic documentusing a template to generate a second electronic document by tagging atleast a subset of the plurality of regions of the first electronicdocument with information indicating a logical order of the plurality ofthe regions based on the template, the tagging information conforming toat least one accessibility standard and allowing an accessibility toproduct to present the subset of the plurality of regions through acomputing device according to the logical order without userspecification of the logical order of presentation.
 16. The system ofclaim 15, wherein the template includes a set of tagging rulescorresponding to a type of the first document.
 17. The system of claim16, wherein the template defines the plurality of regions in associationwith the set of tagging rules.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein theinstructions are executable on the processor for automatically detectingthe plurality of regions.
 19. The system of claim 18, wherein theautomatically detected plurality of regions are saved in the template.20. The system of claim 19, wherein the plurality of regions areautomatically detected by determining a plurality of text fragmentsassociated with at least one of the plurality of regions and determininga gap between the plurality of text fragments.
 21. The system of claim20, wherein the plurality of text fragments have a reading order.